Casting has been unveiled for the Bridge House Theatre SE20’s production tick, tick…BOOM!, the autobiographical rock musical that traces Jonathan Larson’s creation of his multi-award-winning Rent.
Running from 30 September until 27 October 2019 and directed by the artistic director Guy Retallack, tick, tick…BOOM! will be the first musical produced by the Bridge House outside the South London venue’s popular Christmas seasons.
Alex Lodge (The Book of Mormon, West End, Titanic, UK tour) will play Jon alongside Georgie Ashford (Oklahoma!, Chichester Festival Theatre, Beautiful: The Carole King Story, West End) as Susan and James Hume (Les Misérables, West End, Titanic, Southwark Playhouse and Toronto transfer) as Michael.
First performed Off-Off-Broadway in 1990 as a solo workshop show by Larson entitled Boho Days, the writer changed the title to tick, tick…BOOM! before performing it at various New York venues in the early 1990s.
Larson performed the piece as a rock monologue but after his death in 1996 his college friend and producer Victoria Leacock asked Pulitzer Prize-winning David Auburn (Proof) to reconfigure the show. With the monologue transformed into a three-actor musical with one actor playing Jon and the other two playing Michael and Susan as well as the seven other characters, the revised version of the show premiered Off- Broadway in 2001.
Announcing the Bridge House production earlier this year, the show’s producer, resident artistic producer Rob Harris, said: “With the constant pressures that life puts on us to achieve and reach our goals tick, tick… BOOM! seems more relevant today than ever. Sadly, Larson’s sudden death left us with only two fully realised shows and we will make sure our production is a great tribute to his legacy.
“We also feel extremely privileged to have been granted the rights to this wonderful piece as it may be the last professional London production before the widely-anticipated film version of the show goes into production for Netflix – directed by Lin-Manuel Miranda.”
Angela Thomas
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